What Do Edgar Allan Poe and Jane Austen Have In Common?

Probably not much, but I used both writers as inspiration in the two Lynne Perrella workshops I took last weekend.

Lynne is a fabulous mixed media collage artist, and I was fortunate enough to take workshops with her last year as well.  I credit those with transforming my own collages to a much higher level, and the journal pages I've done since then all do reflect the many things I've learned from Lynne. 

The classes were sponsored by The Ink Pad, and held in the very spacious community room at Westbeth, an artists' residence in Greenwich Village, right off the Hudson River.  We had lots of space to spread out and work.

And right outside, a beautiful spot for lunch.

On Saturday, the theme was Edgar Allan Poe.  Pat, my great pal and cruise roomie took this workshop with me, and it was wonderful to share the experience with her.


Lynne's preferred surface is a humble piece of red rosin paper, the kind contractors normally use to protect floors during construction.

We cover the paper with gesso and add a great deal of texture at this point.

Then acrylic paint.

Then more texture, more color with portfolio water soluble oil pastels, ink....

Then additional collage elements, stencils, altered graphics.....

Above is the Edgar Allan Poe piece I left with on Saturday.  It isn't finished (I plan to add some machine stitching and possibly some further images), but gives you a good idea of what can be done in one day with Lynne.  BTW, it is a 24" square.

The following day, the theme was "A Novel Approach," and we were to choose a favorite novel and bring images with us to support our choice.  Mine was Sense and Sensibility, and my work here was totally different from the Poe piece.

The background technique was the same, but my color palette was way different, and I chose to do a book rather than a painting.

Front cover:

Inner pages:

Back cover:

In May, my friend Teri and I are headed for Connecticut for an entire weekend with Lynne.  Yippee!